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Re: The Duty to Stay Connected

jeffdunsavage — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:33:12 -0000

You'll never look at a door the same way again.

Re: The Duty to Stay Connected

jeffdunsavage — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:58:48 -0000

My favorite book about design is Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things. It completely liberated me from the idea that I am a klutz as I came to see that the everyday objects that betrayed my presumed klutziness were poorly designed. Core to Norman's design theory is: Design is putting knowledge into the world. This is done through systems of "affordances" and "constraints" -- excellent design contains both. It doesn't just allow you to do things...it also keeps you from doing the wrong things. Think about floppy disks (remember floppies?) - actually, I'm thinking about the rigid ones (even though we still called them floppies): You couldn't put them in the drive wrong...you almost couldn't even try. The drive opening and the disk conspired without words to show you how it should go in. Compare that with so much award-winning design that you have to figure out. Doors with no obvious cues as to which side you need to push or pull and whether you need to push or pull. Phones with non-intuitive (even counterintuitive) key pads.

Most memorable line from Norman's book: "A door that requires a Push or Pull sign is a poorly designed door." I'm trying to design my life according to that philosophy.

Re: The Duty to Stay Connected

jeffdunsavage — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:32:34 -0000

Great post. I had a similar conversation with my business partner a couple of nights ago, not about being connected as such but as to how we manage information. His dream is a perfect flow of information through a channel that he can access by any means at any time. I like my multiple e-mail accounts and actually having to log in to my social media sites. These constraints make my information self-organizing. People who need to reach me know they can through my work e-mail, which goes straight to my PDA. Stuff I care about but don't want to necessarily deal with in real time goes to one of my regularly checked e-mail accounts. I manage Twitter via Tweetdeck and look at FaceBook when I feel like it. This suits me just fine.